Solidarity Series: a recap
The Filipino American Student Association, the Asian American Student Initiative (AASI), and W&M’s Center for Student Diversity (CSD) partnered together to produce a much-needed Solidarity Series, in which we invited the W&M community to learn more about and discuss what solidarity really means in Asia America. Averaging 41 attendees per event, each Solidarity Series installment dealt with a different face of anti-Blackness in the Asian American community. At the beginning of every session, the presenters and discussion leaders made an announcement that acknowledged the Indigenous peoples who are the original inhabitants of the campus and nearby land.
Led by FASA’s External Director, Camille Zeraat ‘22, the first Solidarity Series defined institutionalized racism through the case of Stokely Carmichael & Charles. She emphasized the role of policies, organizations, systems, and structures in perpetuating racist ideas, rather than identifying racism at the individual level. Beginning the history of institutionalized racism at the 13th Amendment, it was made clear that the law never truly had the intention or effect that is often taught in American education; slaves were not free as long as there were other institutional mechanisms that served as ‘just punishment’ for Black people. Once the Civil War had ended and the Southern economy collapsed, the labor vacuum left by freed slaves was met with the creation of loitering and vagrancy laws targeted toward Black people. In the early 1970s, the Nixon administration further systematized the myth of black criminality by making Blackness synonymous with the social disorder that accompanied widespread drug use.
The United States government capitalized on the fear of chaos to double law enforcement spending and further terrorize black communities. The Reagan administration advanced Nixon’s rhetoric even more by declaring a “War on Drugs,” developing harsh mandatory minimums for minor drug offenses that flooded communities of colors, sending thousands of Black men to prisons. Between 1925 and 1960, incarceration rates never reached higher than 250,000. After the War on Drugs, the prison population skyrocketed, peaking at just above 1.5 million in the early 2000s. Black criminality had never been realized more than at this moment.
Camille’s presentation follows institutional racism to the present day, exploring subjects such as the past and present forms of policing, housing discrimination, and the intersecting experiences of the Asian American community and the Black community.
The second Solidarity Series was led by members of AASI's executive board: Jamelah Jacob, Calvin Kim, Isabella DiFulvio, and Grace Liscomb. They centered their discussion and presentation around affirmative action, the model minority myth, and colorism. In understanding these integral parts of the Asian American experience, we can better navigate how Asia America is often pitted against the Black community as a means of protecting white privilege. The final Solidarity Series asked students at W&M how they feel belonging at a predominantly white institution and was led by Shreyas Kumar.
In discussing our experiences, we found several common themes that unite us and encourage us to step up and become truly active allies in the fight for racial justice. We are tired of W&M placing students in impossible situations in which we are expected to unravel generations of systemic racism with little to no resources. We are tired of W&M not being able to have genuine conversations with students without alienating them. We are tired of W&M upholding racist historical figures through building names and underfunding the departments that work to reeducate students about the real history of this campus. We call upon the W&M administration to take greater initiative in supporting its multi-cultural organizations, which we found to be one of the primary factors in developing our sense of belonging and Asian American identities in predominantly white institutions.
Click through the galleries below to view the full presentation slides and the PDF to view the discussion questions.
